Indian telecommunications operator Reliance Jio expects to connect at least a billion connected IoT devices to its Internet of Things (IoT) platform within the next two years, Indian newspaper The Economic Times reported the company’s Chairman Mukesh Ambani as saying.
“Jio has developed an innovative service on its pan-India 4G network called Narrowband Internet of Things. Using NB-IoT data from billions of smart sensors whether residential, industrial or public can be collected from across India with the highest reliability and lowest cost,” he said.
Ambani said that Jio expects its nationwide NB-IoT platform to be fully commercially available in January 2020.
He also said that the company aims to connect at least 1 billion of the estimated 2 billion connected IoT devices likely to emerge in India within the next two years, according to the report.
The executive also said that a total of 300 million electricity meters still need to be connected digitally for real-time monitoring and for giving consumers full visibility and control of cost and quality, “and going forward each home and business premise will have dozens of connected devices,” he added.
Reliance Jio launched a pilot to trial NB-IoT technology in the city of Mumbai in 2018. The company had previously claimed that it was the only operator in India with the capability to launch a nationwide NB-IoT network.
Rival operator Vodafone Idea is also paving the way to launch commercial NB-IoT services in the Indian market. The telco has already rolled out commercial NB-IoT proof of concepts (PoC) in the cities of Kochi, Jaipur, Bengaluru and Chennai, with the aim of lauching commercial services nationwide within the next 12 months.
Bharti Airtel is also working to launch its NB-IoT network in India.
SoftBank certifies new NB-IoT modules from Quectel Wireless Solutions
In other IoT news, Quectel Wireless Solutions announced that its NB-IoT modules BC95-G and BC68 have received certifications from Japanese telco SoftBank.
The two certifications will give IoT integrators, developers and OEMs ability to deploy both fixed and mobile IoT applications leveraging SoftBank’s network in Japan, Quectel Wireless said.
The BC95-G and BC68 are multi-band NB-IoT modules, both of which work on LTE FDD bands of B1/B8 on the carrier’s network. They provide solutions for a wide range of IoT applications such as smart metering, bike sharing, smart parking, smart city, security and asset tracking, smoking detectors, home appliances, agricultural and environmental monitoring, among others.
“Certifications of these two well-received NB-IoT modules play an important role in helping our customers tap the Japanese market and expand their IoT business in fields like smart metering and wearable devices,” said Delbert Sun, product director at Quectel.
“This is a testament to our commitment to quality that we have made to our customers and highlights our long-term partnership with SoftBank to enable a massive connected society in Japan,” he added.
